wish, suicide by extreme makeover.“What a total gas,”
they said, “like

totally freaky. And we get paid.”

So they went to work. Attacked her

with a groomer’s equivalent of hedge

clippers, two kinds of hair dye, and

bleach, then got down and dirty on

her face with straight pins, rings, and

studs with semi-precious stones,

enlisting a tattooist somewhere along

the line who did her dirty with death

heads, smoking jesuses and his wiggy

apostles, until her body resembled a 60’s

witch on a psychedelic bender that might

never end. Good thing she was pasted on

peyote buttons too.Looked into a mirror

and saw that it was good; the perfect picture

of a disaffected youth with a devil fetish,

death wish and a drug habit no street

fighting man with a microphone could

ignore unless he was as warped and as high

as she was when she took the plunge.

A few months of total degradation, a stint

in rehab, and a hold on her trust funds

made the whole bad trip seem unreal.

That and his flaming outin some weird

murder/ suicide pact with an underage runaway

from Iowa City, made her see the error

of her ways. Took the European tour cure,

making it from one end of the continent

to the other, on some sexual joy ride like

Russian Roulette with bodily fluids that

threatened to get serious when she heard

conversations in nearby rooms about white

slavery, Saudi Arabian oil money and places

in the desert even heat seeking missiles
couldn’t

find.Back
home she didn’t exactly live

the life of a nun but found the thrill was
gone

now that the ultimate risk had been eliminated

from the game. Life was dull but she’d manage

and in ten years she’d be having all the best

laser surgery a six, going on seven figures a
year,

allowance could buy. Still, no matter what she

did or, how much foundation she applied, the scars

would always show through.

Alan Catlin has poems in Magazine of Speculative Poetry, Dreams and Nightmares, Ygdrasil and darkling Magazine. He has been nominated three times for the science fiction poetry award, The Rhysling Award and for the horror book award, The Bram Stoker Awards for his chapbook “The Insomniac's Gift” illustrated by collage artist Michael Shores. His latest full length book of poetry is “Alien Nation”.